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On this day in Alabama history: Meteor shower filled the Alabama sky

By Graydon RustAlabama 200

November 13, 2017

Carl Carmer (center), author of Stars Fell On Alabama, visits with renowned photographers Edward Steichen (left) and Charles Sheeler (right) at his home in New York State in 1963. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution)

November 13, 1833

A dramatic meteor shower filled the sky with about 30,000 meteors an hour in an event remembered as the night stars fell on Alabama. The shower inspired the title of Carl Carmer’s 1934 bestselling book “Stars Fell on Alabama,” which related Carmer’s experiences in Alabama in the 1920s through the dramatized voice of a Northerner. Part memoir and part cultural analysis, the book received high praise by The New York Times and the Northern press. Most Alabamians, however, believed Carmer purposefully disparaged the state by focusing on negative aspects of its culture, including Ku Klux Klan parades, foot-washings and voodoo rituals.

Stars Fell On Alabama, written by Carl Carmer and published in 1934, tells of the author’s travels throughout the state during the 1920s. The title refers to a meteor shower that occurred in 1833. (Encyclopedia of Alabama)

A rustic map from Stars Fell on Alabama, showing the state as author Carl Carmer viewed it. (Encyclopedia of Alabama)

An illustration from the Red Hills section of Carl Carmer’s Stars Fell on Alabama. (Encyclopedia of Alabama)